Do you use an fairing or partial fairing on your ebike, emoped or BSM?

Chalo said:
True for Weebles, but low bikes fall down real good.

I think the typical recumbent rider is older and likely suffering from some health problem that steers them towards a design which takes pressure off their back.

Haven't we sort of looked at the demographics of recumbent riders as old white guys?

Young people love the thrills and chills of sport and this is why the aerodynamics question has a way of ruining the fun of the sporting nature of bicycles.

I remember as a kid riding BMX bikes and it was that sense of being free and being able to jump into the air that made it so fun.

We are all still kids at heart when it comes to bikes... even if some (like me) are old and gray. (not super old yet though)

How does one design for aerodynamic benefit without wrecking the sporting aspect?

That's the real question.
 
Chalo said:
SafeDiscDancing said:
Chalo said:
Low isn't stable. Low is tippy because the roll rate is too fast.

It depends on speed.

If the low center of mass bike is going 200 mph it's not going to be easy to get it to change direction.

But at slow speed any steering will cause wobbles... "Wheebles Wobble But Don't Fall Down".

True for Weebles, but low bikes fall down real good.

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Neither of these videos makes me believe low racers fall down easily.

The kid in the first video is an obvious first time rider...but after finding the balance point of the bike after the first fall he doesn't fall again.

The man in the second video became scared when saw the lip on the driveway. He believed the driveway lip was going to cause him to crash because he reacted just prior to the impact with it. (Reading through the comments under his YouTube video the owner of the video brought up it was only the second time riding the bike. This explains his inexperience with judging bumps. He also complains of not being to look over things to see the road ahead of him which would include things like the driveway lip.)
 
25K miles on pedal-only bikes. Half of that on recumbents. 62K miles on two e-assist bikes, both recumbent. I have fallen once on each of the electric assist recumbents. Once on a gravel road, and once on asphalt. In both cases I got a little road rash, and rode home. I had one crash on my carbon Giant road bike, and broke my collar bone, and shoulder blade. Falling off a step ladder is worse than falling down.
 
Warren said:
I had one crash on my carbon Giant road bike, and broke my collar bone, and shoulder blade. Falling off a step ladder is worse than falling down.

Some bikes invite risk and thrills.

Other bikes calm you down and make you slow down and be more cautious.

The funny thing is young people love danger and excitement so they will always prefer the risky machine over the cautious one.

As I see it the primary advantage of the recumbent (other than aerodynamic drag reduction) is the sense you are reclining in a chair rather than effectively riding on top of a horse. (upright bike)

But at the highest levels of cycling when everything feels right it's a feeling more like flying.

Motocross and dirt track riding really stresses the "airborn" sensation of being always loose and drifting and floating around.

You think of going through a section of whoops and the center of mass follows a line completely disconnected from what the wheels are doing and with long travel suspension that gets really extreme.
 
SafeDiscDancing said:
Chalo said:
Low isn't stable. Low is tippy because the roll rate is too fast.

It depends on speed.

Exactly. Speed is time, and stability as well as reactivity are time related.

-——-——

Then, COG is not alone in this fight between stability and reactivity. Length and size and all geometry factors, are contributing to make a bike a good compromise. A bike is always a compromise.

Even today that we have so many tools to help designing the perfect bike for a given task, a fair part of success is left to luck, or try and error after-production mods. Science gets you a pretty good idea, but design is a creative process that implies so many factors... Only competition and proof of time can tell a brilliant idea from a brain fart.
 
SafeDiscDancing said:
I think the typical recumbent rider is older and likely suffering from some health problem that steers them towards a design which takes pressure off their back.

Haven't we sort of looked at the demographics of recumbent riders as old white guys?

Young people love the thrills and chills of sport and this is why the aerodynamics question has a way of ruining the fun of the sporting nature of bicycles.

Young people do a lot of things. The "sporting" bicyclist is a tiny fraction of the market.

Recumbent riders are old white guys, because they got interested in them 30 years ago. There are people today who get interested in tricycles because of infirmities, but that's the only kind of recumbent that caters to health problems. A recumbent bicycle, i.e. two wheels, just lets you bicycle without creating health problems like cramped neck, numb hands, sore ass.

I don't use the fairing these days that came with my recumbent bicycle, partly because for me it's more fun riding without it. Whether that's because it isn't sporty or whatever, I leave that to you to worry about. But if I had long hours to ride possibly in headwinds, etc., I'd consider putting it back on. That's the point of aerodynamics: to save you a little wind resistance, when wind resistance really matters. For most, it never really does. When it does, it's a situation where you're probably not going to sweat over how sporty your ride is.
 
SafeDiscDancing said:
Chalo said:
True for Weebles, but low bikes fall down real good.

I think the typical recumbent rider is older and likely suffering from some health problem that steers them towards a design which takes pressure off their back.

Haven't we sort of looked at the demographics of recumbent riders as old white guys?

Young people love the thrills and chills of sport and this is why the aerodynamics question has a way of ruining the fun of the sporting nature of bicycles.

I remember as a kid riding BMX bikes and it was that sense of being free and being able to jump into the air that made it so fun.

We are all still kids at heart when it comes to bikes... even if some (like me) are old and gray. (not super old yet though)

How does one design for aerodynamic benefit without wrecking the sporting aspect?

That's the real question.

Any part that can be designed aerodynamic without making it weaker or easily damaged is a good place to start.

Perhaps the wheels is the first place to look? or a small front fairing?

I like the small front fairing shown below on the Sur-ron cafe racer:
 

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Comes with free mouth guard to protect your teeth from bumps.

Headlamp is extra. :lol:
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:

Why not do a full MotoGP look?

Keep the excellent performance of a Sur Ron and just add some more fiberglass?

Update the styling to the more modern look with the upswept rear end.

834946.jpg


I'd bet some Aprilia 50cc motorcycle fairings would be close to a perfect fit unmodified.

9210b5262aa0c3ced7e548ac7e82f9c8.jpg
 
SafeDiscDancing said:
Why not do a full MotoGP look?

Weight, rattling, jankiness, knee clearance, cosplay loser look?
 
Chalo said:
Weight, rattling, jankiness, knee clearance, cosplay loser look?

We are talking about a Sur Ron so they already weigh a good amount and are not pedal bikes so no worries about knee clearance.

And one thing about something like this... if you cannot RIDE the bike fast then you do end up looking like a joke.

But people see you ripping around corners at high speed and all of a sudden it's pretty cool.

Long ago there was the term "Squid".

A "Squid" is a guy on a really great bike that has huge potential but the guy cannot ride and so he's a "Squid".

I have no idea how that started or if anyone still uses it.
 
This could be an alternative thread... a probably should be... but another factor in performance is traction.

What good is the extra speed without wider rims, wider tires with better grip and better brakes?

My avatar is "SafeDiscDancing" and I have two of the Tektro brand discs at 203 mm.

The thickness is 2.3mm.

The extra reinforcement in the middle really stiffens them up too.

And I got the "double pull" brakes so they activate both at once and are pretty strong.

Compared to disc brakes I had owned in the past this overall package gives me at least double the braking capability if not more... it's nearly motorcycle level.

s-l1600.jpg


You get the joke of course... "Safe Distancing" ---> "Safe Disc Dancing".
 
Very strange indeed I never quite understood your username or why you choose it but I have always had a hard time coming up with a username and a password for forums, email accounts etc

SafeDiscDancing said:
You get the joke of course... "Safe Distancing" ---> "Safe Disc Dancing".
 
http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm

Using the above calculator with "road bike hands on tops" and changing rider height and weight to 70" and 200 lbs (average height and weight for an American male) I get a power consumption of 685:watts @ 28.0 mph with pedal cadence at 90. When I switch pedal cadence to 1 (it wouldn't let me input 0) only 615 watts is needed to make 28.0 mph.

So the extra drag caused by pedaling 90 rpm on a road bike going 28 mph is 70 watts.

For the "Roadster" it was 940 watts for 28 mph at pedal cadence 1 and 1025 watts for 28 mph at pedal cadence 90. So to he extra drag caused by pedaling 90 rpm on a Roadster going 28 mph is 85 watts.
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
So the extra drag caused by pedaling 90 rpm on a road bike going 28 mph is 70 watts.

Here is a thought...

Rather than the human doing the work on the flat and the ebike do the work on the hills why not the other way around?

In other words why not make man and machine live in harmony?

So the thinking would be on flat land the human let's the motor do the work and ONLY on the hills would the human participate to HELP THE MACHINE achieve the goal of getting around.

We live with laws that are upside down.

The goal of the ebike should NOT be to force the human to suffer, but to provide a superior example of human machine unity.

Transhumanism without the creepy DNA manipulation.

This then allows ideas to improve aerodynamics under the assumption that on flat land the human is less "exposed".
 
Warren said:
Safe would love this discussion.

But wasn't safe really evil and into all kinds of Luciferian stuff?

We must remain as very naive children and fear this type of person.

In my opinion we must NEVER speak of this horrible person ever again.

After all this guy is literally Lucifer !!!

Safe must never again be mentioned.
 
One thing I don't remember discussing in this thread is headwinds.

Headwinds just kill the mph. Of course, once you make a 90 degree turn the headwind becomes a crosswind.
 
ebike4healthandfitness said:
Headwinds just kill the mph. Of course, once you make a 90 degree turn the headwind becomes a crosswind.
Sure but your forward motion thru the 90 deg. wind turns it into somewhat of a headwind.
 
SafeDiscDancing said:
This could be an alternative thread... a probably should be... but another factor in performance is traction.

What good is the extra speed without wider rims, wider tires with better grip and better brakes?

My avatar is "SafeDiscDancing" and I have two of the Tektro brand discs at 203 mm.

The thickness is 2.3mm.

The extra reinforcement in the middle really stiffens them up too.

And I got the "double pull" brakes so they activate both at once and are pretty strong.

Compared to disc brakes I had owned in the past this overall package gives me at least double the braking capability if not more... it's nearly motorcycle level.

s-l1600.jpg


You get the joke of course... "Safe Distancing" ---> "Safe Disc Dancing".

Good tires and Good brakes make a solid foundation for an aerodynamic upgrade.

If a person has better aerodynamics that means when he or she lets off the throttle his or her bike will take longer to come to a stop. This, of course, because the atmosphere is less involved with resisting the forward movement of the bike.

In addition to better brakes and tires something else to think about is Regen. With less resistance from air contributing to bike slowdown more energy can be recaptured and stored in the battery. Also by using regeneration the disc, rim or drum brakes will see less wear.
 
Anything that saves on brake pads is a must if you ride frequently I plan to put it back on mine as I ripped through a fresh set of v.brake pads in a month and I was lucky to find a shop while riding that had avid v.brake pads for a tenner. I had to go down 2 small hills and metal on metal braking is horrible.
 
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